Design for the… bottom?

Technological development seems to be increasingly focused on designing for the base of the economic pyramid. The goal is to reach the poorest of the poor. To design for the other 90%. To work closely with communities to design appropriately for the local culture, and to keep everything (materials, manufacturing, maintenance, etc.) as local as possible.

The approach is a bottom up approach. Start at the base of the pyramid, and work your way up.

That was how I was initially introduced to this field. I learned that designs that are pushed from the top down often don’t reach the base of the pyramid, and designs that are generated in the bottom are the way to have a real impact.

Susan Murcott of MIT describes this approach to design as co-evolutionary design for development (full PDF here). She explains in her article why she supports and practices this approach to design, and gives an example of a household water filter to remove arsenic that was designed using this method in Nepal. In 2006 (when the article was published), 4,700 filters were in use.

4,700 filters. Out of 150 million arsenic-affected people in the world. That’s not a lot.

I have yet to encounter a bottom up approach to design that has really scaled, and has really had the desired impact. Maybe it’s because co-evolutionary design focuses on local materials and labor which is not conducive to scaling up or quality control. Maybe it’s because technologies designed for the bottom are not perceived well by potential users. I don’t know.

But I do know that cell phones, which were designed for the top and demanded by the bottom, have had a far greater reach than any other bottom up design I’ve encountered thus far.

Treadle pumps are one. Probably 2.5-4 million (?) out there so far, each one on average serving probably 10 people (?). And focused strongly in south east asia, within a specific group of people. Not bad…

There are more examples too. Manpreet’s is good. I remember hearing that 3M ceramic-metal stoves in Senegal had been bought, out of a country of 10-12M people. Pretty amazing penetration.

I wonder whether the “generativity” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generativity; see para on Zittrain) of technologies has anything to do here. The mobile phone is such a frikking versatile tool, really a swiss army knife tech in many regards. Phone calls, SMS, pricing structures, so much to play with, choose, and adapt for individual users. People have a lot of flexibility in choosing *the* mobile phone they can use.

Now generativity is probably not a requirement for scaling, but I have a feeling this helps a lot. (People credit the ability for anyone to write apps as the main reason for iPhone growing so fast as well, to take another example.)

And the other thing about generative technologies is that they are also good for meeting bottom up needs. This argument has been expressed in discussions of twitter hashtags and @replies, which were both made up by its users and not by twitter itself. Hashtags and @replies make twitter what it is today, but these were “technologies” made by the ‘bottom’ and subsumed much later by the ‘top’.

Of course, there are questions as to whether these thoughts are applicable for the “BoP,” and would love to hear responses on that.

Anyways, what I think I am trying to say is:
– “Generativity” (also adaptability?) might help top-down technologies to scale.
– “Generative” top-down technologies also help meet bottom up needs, and therefore maybe something we should strive for.

Even in the case of the mobile phone, there are thoughts about designing for the bottom. The way that Nokia took such a dominant position was by redesigning their phones with features for the poorest customers (e.g. putting a flashlight).

In general, I think that there is a trend toward designs for the near-bottom of the pyramid being the most successful at reaching the very bottom. In that sense, I think that there are many cases where it’s important to aim low on the pyramid and then work its way down. In general, for technologies to prove themselves, they need to be adopted by people who can afford a little risk. People for whom a failed purchase won’t mean starvation. But that doesn’t mean that you have to aim for the top and then work your way down.

It’s not one or the other… bottom up designs are generally more focused on the end users, but to scale up they eventually have to be assisted by access to finance and distribution channels, receptive government policies, etc. Both stove examples given above were highly promoted (and in some cases heavily subsidized) by international NGOs and multilaterals.

Also need to factor in that the poor don’t always want products that look like they were designed for poor people and made locally – a lot want products that make them feel like they are a step closer to wealthier people so there’s a lot of value in “aspirational” products like cell phones. KCJ is great, but I bet most people (except the absolute poorest) would pay more for an Envirofit or StoveTec.

The Kenyan Ceramic Jiko costs between $2 and $5. I’ve seen a number of estimates on how many have been sold, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything less than 1 million sold. And some estimates are into tens of million sold.
[Given the nature of the technology, and the dissemination strategies used, I don’t see how anyone has an accurate estimate]http://kammen.berkeley.edu//cookstoves.html

The Envirofit stove costs $25, and says that they’ve sold 60 000 stoves.

I absolutely agree that there’s a lot of value in ‘aspirational products’.

My opinion is that improved stoves are a stop-gap technology, and people transition from biomass, to LPG or biogas stoves when they can afford to do so. [I’ve seen a lot of anecdotal evidence of this in China and Rwanda]. Given that, a stove that isn’t affordable to the absolute poorest isn’t as scaleable.